Disclosure Season 8 Episode 1

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Transcript

00:00One of the most difficult things about dating apps is you can be whoever you

00:09want to be. It's called romance fraud and it's on the rise. It's really a crime

00:15that targets our most human desires to be loved, to be cared for, to be looked

00:21after. Christopher Harkins seemed like a dream date but he betrayed the trust of

00:26nearly two dozen women. 37 year old Christopher Harkins used Facebook and

00:32the dating app Tinder to target his victims. I definitely realized I don't

00:37know who this person is. The reason why I wasn't into you was looks. Simple as that.

00:43He took their money and was sexually and violently abusive. I remember thinking

00:48this is it. I'm gonna be one of these women who's killed by their boyfriend.

00:52Harkins had left a trail of emotional devastation. Many women reported him to

00:57the police yet Harkins evaded justice for almost a decade. If the police had taken

01:02this seriously early on there are so many other women whose lives would not have

01:06been affected. It was the determination of those women that finally put a stop to

01:12one of Scotland's most prolific romance fraudsters. You've picked the wrong person.

01:17There's no way you're running this.

01:24I had recently just came out of a relationship. I was carrying a broken heart at the time so

01:33I probably was in essence a little bit vulnerable. It was 2015 and Zara, that's not her real name,

01:41was working as a sales rep for a luxury car brand in Glasgow.

01:44Tinder was where it was at. That's where a lot of people went to to start dating. Me and

01:49all my friends used it and there was nice guys on it so you weren't as weary as you maybe are these days.

01:54I work full time, I work hard so that you know there wasn't a huge amount of opportunity to meet

02:04somebody if it wasn't online. In 2019 Lisa was a successful consultant but she'd become disillusioned

02:11with dating. These women were happy to be filmed but asked for different names to be used so they're

02:17not forever linked to this story. I had been single at that point for about three years and Tinder was

02:24becoming you know quite a cool thing to do. Lisa and Zara both matched with the same guy, a self-described

02:31business owning cocktail drinking gym rat called Chris.

02:38I just remember seeing him, he's a nice looking boy, he dressed really well and he gave off the

02:43kind of sense of being quite a successful young man. I swiped right and then he came up a match.

02:50You can either message first or wait for them to message but I never message first.

02:56I remember describing him to friends as Jason Momoa. Pretty athletic looking, masculine, you know he had tattoos.

03:08He clearly thought he looked good as well. Quite adventurous you know there was lots of pictures of holidays.

03:16He mentioned loads of places that he'd been and they were all quite extravagant like Thailand, Maldives, America.

03:23This jet-setting, athletic, young businessman was ticking a lot of boxes.

03:31We arranged a date in Glasgow. We went to a comedy club and he was even more handsome in person.

03:40Yeah at this point I'm thinking gentlemen, no creepy vibes.

03:44We met maybe two or three weeks after we had initially started chatting and it was really casual.

03:51It was a nice date, we chatted away again, sort of no red flags.

03:58After the comedy club we went to the casino. He was quite flashy and he won quite big on roulette.

04:05And he'd put cash in my handbag and said just keep that, we'll go halfours.

04:14And I was a bit like, a bit strange but I'll take it.

04:21He told me that he had a foreign currency exchange business and made a lot of money from it.

04:26One of the most difficult things about dating apps is you can be whoever you want to be.

04:33What the women didn't know was that this was all part of Harkin's carefully laid plan.

04:39People go on to dating apps presenting the images that they want to present.

04:44Businessmen in charge of a lot of money or big decision making and very flash holidays.

04:49You have to remember perpetrators are working really hard to make this version that they're putting forward a reality.

04:57For me, kind of being chosen and feeling like somebody likes you that quickly, it feels like validation.

05:06When somebody is giving you the power to be the most important person in their life, that is a real confidence builder.

05:14But of course you're just being used.

05:16As the months passed, cracks began to appear in Harkin's carefully curated persona.

05:22He hated make-up, absolutely hated make-up.

05:26He would always say, you've got too much make-up on, wash your face.

05:31He had a thing about nail polish as well, didn't like red nail polish.

05:36I remember thinking, who's he to tell me I can't wear make-up?

05:41We went for dinner.

05:43It was just a normal date night, we were having fun, chat back and forth.

05:49He'd excused himself to go to the bathroom.

05:51The bill came over, I had paid the bill, I thought it was a nice thing to do.

05:55And at that point he got really angry with me.

05:56He said, don't ever effing do that again.

06:01He said that I had completely embarrassed him.

06:04He was quite aggressive and he actually grabbed my arm at that point.

06:08It was kind of here and he just grabbed it quite tight and almost lifted me up out the seat and said, we're leaving.

06:13What was your reaction to that?

06:16Shock.

06:18Harkins had said he owned a successful business, but four months in, he asked Zara to pay for hundreds of pounds worth of designer shirts.

06:26He never paid her back.

06:27Then he asked her for even more money.

06:31I got a strange message from him asking if I could transfer £800 into a bank account that wasn't his.

06:39And he said it was for one of his best friends who I'd never heard of before.

06:44However, Chris couldn't transfer his friend the money because his bank account was frozen.

06:49After just three dates, Harkins also persuaded Lisa to transfer cash.

06:55So it was very early on all of the holiday chat started.

06:59He had said, where would you like to go?

07:01He then started sending me pictures of hotels, five star, swim up rooms, you know, where it's all very private.

07:12Harkins asked Lisa to transfer half the holiday cost to him.

07:15So she made the bank transfer.

07:18£3,247, you know, to the penny.

07:21And he sent her a booking confirmation.

07:24When you feel like this is now your partner, you are in a relationship with them.

07:28I care for them.

07:29They've asked me, I'd be a bad partner if I don't do this.

07:32And this is where we actually see where the financial fraud really escalates.

07:37For Zara, alarm bells were ringing.

07:39At this point, I was very switched on to the fact that this guy has been telling some lies.

07:46So I pretended that I was doing the transfer, just to see what his reaction would be.

07:51He was blowing up my phone, texting me, calling me, this money's not arrived.

07:56If you can't afford it, just say, you're so embarrassing.

07:59I'd blocked him, and maybe a few days later, I got some random text messages from numbers that I hadn't heard of.

08:08I knew it was him, and it was just abuse.

08:11Going in for my looks, my teeth, just ripping me apart.

08:17And at that point, I definitely realised that this, I don't know who this person is.

08:21After transferring more than £3,000, Lisa began to have doubts.

08:27I woke up the next morning, and it's, it's so hard to describe this,

08:31because I woke up with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

08:36And so I called him, and his phone was off.

08:40And yeah, the sinking feeling just got deeper.

08:43Frantic, Lisa called the hotel in Greece.

08:46They had no record of the booking in either of their names.

08:49She spoke to her bank, and says she was told they couldn't help.

08:54She transferred the money willingly to a person known to her.

08:58I felt like an idiot.

08:59I phoned the police, and the police had asked me to come in.

09:03I went to the desk, and she kind of dismissed me and said,

09:06well, there's not really much we can do if your boyfriend doesn't want to take you on holiday now.

09:12With in-person romance fraud like this case, a lot of police will turn around and say that this is a civil matter.

09:19It's really important that we have a consistent message with police that when a victim approaches them about romance fraud,

09:26that they are met with empathy and understanding that they deserve, rather than being dismissed and having their feelings diminished.

09:32In the year up to June 2024, almost £95 million was lost to romance fraud in the UK, with an average loss of more than £10,000 per person.

09:45Despite unresolved questions about the holiday booking, Harkins was back in touch with Lisa and had asked her to take out a £12,000 loan for him.

09:53Why was it that you kept speaking to him at this point?

09:56Because I wanted my money back and I thought I could get it.

09:59I just thought, you've picked the wrong person, there's no way you're winning this.

10:04And so I took some of his photographs from his social media and pictures that he'd sent me and I sent it to two or three newspapers.

10:14The next day, I got contacted by a lady called Kat.

10:19Journalist Katrina Stewart took an immediate interest in Lisa's email.

10:24It was a really complicated story.

10:27Luckily, because she is a smart woman, she had kept all of the messages between herself and Christopher Harkins.

10:34Hi Lisa.

10:36She was really concerned that he might go on to have other victims.

10:40I felt like she cared, so that made me feel that I was able to open up without feeling judged.

10:47She was then able to contact him.

10:50He has an excuse for everything.

10:53By that point, I could tell that he was starting to get quite desperate.

10:57With pressure mounting, Harkins returned Lisa's money to her.

11:03But he couldn't stop the front page story, which was published on the 17th of October 2019.

11:08That was the moment it became clear that Lisa was far from the only woman who had been targeted by Harkins.

11:15One of my best friends tagged me on a Facebook post.

11:19Oh my God, is this your ex?

11:23My phone just blew up.

11:25Within a few hours of the article going live, I had five women who had been in touch with Christopher Harkins phone me.

11:33My emails were just pinging constantly.

11:36Christopher Harkins was in the subject heading.

11:39And it very, very quickly became apparent to me that this man had been operating for at least a decade.

11:46That his alleged crimes were far more than financial.

11:51And that this was an individual who was potentially very dangerous.

11:54Katrina discovered Harkins was repeating his holiday scam with numerous women.

12:00He was taking out fraudulent loans in some of their names and the stories got more disturbing.

12:06Verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

12:08I was shocked.

12:10I was absolutely shocked.

12:12It's vile.

12:14And to think that I let this guy into my life.

12:18It's so scary.

12:19Many of the women that I spoke to had been to Police Scotland and tried to complain about his behaviour.

12:24Nothing had been done.

12:26And it seemed to me that it was really vital to make sure that this man's name was in the public domain

12:31in order to try and prevent their being more victims.

12:34With cases like this, they will carry on doing this if they are not stopped.

12:38And when it's ignored by the police, it empowers and emboldens them.

12:43So we see an escalation in the crimes that are committed.

12:46Despite the news coverage, Harkins carried on dating.

12:51He'd found himself a new target on Tinder.

12:54We're calling this woman Naomi.

12:57Using artificial intelligence technology, we've altered her face and voice to protect her identity.

13:02We marched.

13:04We got chatting.

13:06It was nice.

13:08Good to talk to. Good humor.

13:10Just sort of hit it off from there.

13:12Yeah.

13:13When Naomi met Harkins in 2019,

13:14around the same time he was seeing Lisa,

13:18she had no idea of his past.

13:20If I had known he did that to him, it wouldn't have happened.

13:24I would have unmatched, blocked him, blocked his number, decided no one would speak to him again.

13:31The two dated casually for several months.

13:34Patterns of behavior, similar to other women he preyed on, started to appear.

13:40He persuaded Naomi to transfer £500 to him, and then he asked a much bigger favor.

13:45He told me he was having trouble with his bank, and I think he'd asked to transfer about £10,000 into my account.

13:55And he said, would I be able to take it out for him?

13:57So I went to the bank, and he actually came with me.

14:03I was at the till with the cashier, and she asked me, is this being used for fraudulent purposes?

14:11Are you taking it out willingly and knowingly? Are you OK with all of this?

14:15I think by him being there, I felt kind of obligated to answer that.

14:21Yeah, I've known him for a while, but he is a friend.

14:24I didn't think at that point it could be fraud.

14:27The cashier was suspicious, and before Naomi could leave, the police were on the scene.

14:32Chris was sitting in the seat next to me, but they asked me to just come away from him a few steps away.

14:40They basically said, do you know him? How well do you know him? Do you trust him?

14:44Said the same thing. I've known him for a while, so they gave me the 1A, and then I gave it to him.

14:52Naomi handed over the £10,000 cash to Harkins.

14:58On another occasion, things took a darker turn.

15:01After spending a night with Harkins, Naomi received a message that left her shaken.

15:06He sent me a video, it was all through to me, what's Harkins said?

15:09I mean, was that something that you'd consented to?

15:10No, definitely not. It shouldn't have happened.

15:20Can I ask you a wee bit about how you felt?

15:23Absolutely violated.

15:26So I asked him to delete it, but he said you would, but I'm not sure if he ever did.

15:31So, I feel like if I made a big deal out of it, then, you know, that would have maybe triggered him to behave worse.

15:40I don't know.

15:43Naomi decided not to report what has happened to the police.

15:47But BBC Disclosure can reveal that at least nine other women did report Harkins.

15:53Those nine reports were made as far back as 2012.

15:56It is incredibly frustrating.

15:59If the police had taken this seriously early on, when the first women started going to them, asking for help,

16:06there are so many other women whose lives would not have been affected by this man.

16:11We've spoken to multiple women who say they felt dismissed after trying to report Harkins for crimes including physical abuse,

16:21recording intimate videos without consent, tens of thousands of pounds in fraud, and threatening behaviour.

16:28Their complaints were not taken any further by police at the time.

16:31It takes a lot for a victim survivor to come forward.

16:34So, the impact it has when you do finally make that big step to disclose and then are shut down, as it were,

16:40you see women no longer seeking support.

16:42It's because what they've just had is a professional minimising or completely disregarding their experience.

16:48The sheer number of people that came forward, I think it's clear that there were opportunities to investigate.

16:56That makes me feel quite sad, actually, that there were so many opportunities to stop him.

17:02After the first story was published, there was a marked change in the police's approach to Harkins.

17:08Now, they were taking it seriously.

17:11I had several more women who were willing for their stories to be shared in the paper.

17:17So, I was preparing that, I was doing interviews.

17:19At this point, they were going to investigate Christopher Harkins.

17:32It was a unique investigation for Police Scotland at the time.

17:38There was obviously a financial side where there was frauds that were committed,

17:43but that was also coupled with abuse and that was including sexual, physical,

17:48the coercive and controlling behaviour that he displayed was really something that you would describe as monstrous behaviour.

17:53Following the police investigation, Harkins was charged with 16 counts of fraud.

18:00The numbers involved were shocking.

18:03There were two cases where the women had given Harkins more than £70,000.

18:07Over a seven-year period, he was accused of abusing a total of 13 different women, including violent assaults,

18:16recording intimate videos without consent and three counts of rape.

18:20I felt sick when I saw that. I felt real shocked at that.

18:25When the High Court trial called at Paisley, I attended every day.

18:30Harkins stood trial in May 2024.

18:34He had met all of the women who testified online.

18:38He'd make sort of comments about my appearance.

18:42I had a real issue with red lipstick and red nail polish.

18:45He said to me that it was vile, that I made his skin crawl, that he could have any girl that he wanted.

18:53I should think myself lucky that he chose me.

18:55Did you ever challenge him about his behaviour?

18:57Yeah, I did.

18:59But he was so manipulative and so controlling and I would ask him to leave.

19:04I tried to phone the police before.

19:06He threatened me once.

19:08He said to me,

19:09Do you know what?

19:10One time you're going to go home and someone's going to drag you around the side of your house and rape you.

19:16Ahead of the trial, Harkins pleaded guilty to all of the financial crimes.

19:21So in the end, there was £214,000 worth of fraud.

19:25Which meant that for the trial, in front of the jury, there were four women involved and it was all of the crimes of violence.

19:32There was one occasion where he took me and threw me on the floor.

19:36Another occasion where he grabbed my face and held it really tight, sort of pulled my hair towards him.

19:42Then another time where he put his hands around my neck and held me down on the bed so tightly and I tried to get him off me.

19:49But looking up into his eyes while he was doing that, his eyes became vacant.

19:54He was staring right at me, holding my throat and at the time I remember thinking,

20:01This is it.

20:03I'm going to be one of these women who's killed by their boyfriend.

20:07Another former partner, who we are calling Jane, described a pattern of abusive behaviour by Harkins, including recording an intimate video without consent.

20:17He was behind me and I was laying down on the bed.

20:19I remember turning around and seeing a phone and I know I had specifically told him I do not want any videos.

20:27How did you feel?

20:29I was angry. And when I asked him to stop, he did not stop.

20:33He kept saying things like, imagine if your dad saw that video.

20:37He found it all really funny.

20:41For Jane's evidence, the court was cleared so only members of the press were allowed into the room.

20:46And that gave it a very different atmosphere.

20:51We were aware that there was about to be quite harrowing testimony.

20:55All I recall about that incident itself is that I was not awake when it started.

21:00He was trying to have sex with me while I was asleep.

21:03What woke you up?

21:04The only memory I have is discomfort.

21:08I remember feeling in pain.

21:10I remember feeling uncomfortable.

21:13I remember feeling confused.

21:16I tried to push him away.

21:18Were you able to get away?

21:19No.

21:21Why was that?

21:22Because he was stronger than I am.

21:24And if I did try and get away, they'd just end up holding me down.

21:27I remember this was a time when he grabbed me by the neck.

21:32How did you feel when this was happening?

21:35Out of control.

21:37Did you consent?

21:39No.

21:40Out of control.

21:42She was so composed and so calm.

21:46She faced really relentless and forensic questioning from Harkin's defence lawyer.

21:53And she handled that so brilliantly.

21:56There were so many details that I was just horrified to hear.

22:01It shouldn't have to be a brave thing to have to do, but it really, really is what they'd been through and maybe not have been heard the first time.

22:13It takes so much strength to carry that through and to not back out.

22:18Towards the end of the two-week trial, Harkins took the stand, maintaining that he was not guilty of all the physical and sexual abuse allegations against him.

22:32He just seemed like this very diminished, very pathetic figure.

22:38His clothes were too big.

22:39He was hunched over.

22:40He was very quiet.

22:42And he had no real defence.

22:44The women are lying.

22:46And that's what he stuck with.

22:48And it was so flimsy.

22:50In May 2024, Christopher Harkins was found guilty of 19 crimes against 10 women, including Lisa.

22:58Kirsty's allegation that he strangled her was found not proven.

23:02He was convicted of assault for a separate attack on her.

23:06And he was also convicted of raping Jane.

23:09It was really overwhelming.

23:12I was so relieved for the women.

23:13He was furious.

23:15He was shaking his head.

23:16He was very unhappy when he was being led away.

23:21The women's testimony had finally secured justice.

23:26I was at work.

23:27It actually took a moment.

23:28I went out and sat in my car.

23:30I was just so happy at the verdict.

23:32What couldn't be revealed during the trial was that Harkins had also served a prison sentence in 2022 for continuing to scam women in London while he was awaiting trial in Scotland.

23:46I don't think Christopher Harkins.

23:47I don't think Christopher Harkins would ever have stopped what he was doing.

23:51He was a prolific offender.

23:53He was going to keep doing this again and again.

23:55We've spoken to nine other women in addition to the 13 whose allegations form part of the trial who say they too were targeted by Harkins.

24:08We've seen dozens of threatening and abusive messages he sent to women.

24:13We've estimated Harkins may have defrauded at least £53,000 more forcing one woman into bankruptcy and several others into years of paying back loans they never received.

24:31He's also accused of other offences, including the intimate video he took of Naomi.

24:38Had you ever told this to anyone before?

24:40No.

24:42Is this the first time?

24:44Yeah.

24:46Nobody ever takes these things seriously from women.

24:51It's an ongoing issue.

24:52It has been for years.

24:54It's about to die praise on women.

24:56It's...

24:59It's weak.

25:01It's just weak.

25:06Do you think the women were let down?

25:09They were let down.

25:10I feel as if they've been heavily let down by the system.

25:13The response that they had from certain officers, from Police Scotland as a whole, is just not good enough.

25:19You know, you can't always guarantee a conviction, but you should certainly feel that your report has been investigated fully.

25:30We put these concerns to Police Scotland.

25:34The previous reports that were made, there was no reports of physical or sexual abuse ever made to the police at that time.

25:40It was mainly around the financial situation.

25:42We know of one woman who reported multiple frauds in 2014.

25:47We were told that there was physical abuse reported by two women in 2015.

25:51Two further reports in 2018.

25:53Three in 2019.

25:55All totally independent from each other.

25:57They didn't know there were other victims.

25:59And that was all before the police finally investigated.

26:01So, can you see how there may have been missed opportunities?

26:04They've obviously been dealt with in isolation.

26:08And that's probably one of the issues that they've not been pulled together.

26:13But again...

26:14Should they have been?

26:16It depends on how you look at it and the information available to officers at the time.

26:21They were obviously investigated to the best of their ability at that particular time.

26:27Do you think it would be appropriate for Police Scotland to apologise to the women?

26:30I think, again, that's a very difficult question to answer.

26:33They've got a successful court result now, based on the investigation that was conducted.

26:40It's disappointing to find that people feel let down by the police.

26:46I would say, with everything that we've put in place since then,

26:49I would hope that that experience wouldn't be replicated now.

26:54Despite the police's initial failure to act,

26:56the women's persistence eventually led to a dangerous predator being put behind bars.

27:03And on the day of the sentencing, I wore a red dress and my red Chanel lipstick.

27:09A rapist who abused and scammed £214,000 from nine women he met online has been jailed for 12 years.

27:18And as he stood up, he turned round and he looked at the press gallery and he looked at me right in the eye and he said,

27:25this is because of you.

27:26I'll never forget it.

27:27I was just so relieved for everybody that had stood up and told their story.

27:38It's a relief.

27:40He's behind bars.

27:41He can no longer get to any more women and put them through the hell that he's put all those girls through.

27:46Women are starting to be heard, which I absolutely love.

27:51Yeah.

27:53These women are strong and they're tenacious.

27:55And...

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